Hot times in the cuidad

Our first day in Salta proper, we spent walking and walking and walking. The very old Colonial city has beautiful plazas, and is surprisingly crowded wit tourists and locals. The city hasn't quite caught up with the tourism and there's still no traffic lights or stop signs on the traffic crossings. Angie told us you just need to make eye contact with other drivers to decide who's going first. This makes things particularly perilous for the many pedestrians b/c no drivers care to make eye contact with you. Every street crossing is a dance with death! OK, not really, but coming from a city where pedestrians have certain rights to life, it's crazy to be invisible on the streets.

One day we took the cable car called the Teleferico up the side of a mountain and discovered a little paradise that wasn't even in our tour books. The beautiful park with panoramic views held the first joggers and athletes we saw in the whole country. People were actually running up the side of this mountain and then chilling out by the waterfalls. We passed up the running in favor of yet another gigantic meal lasting no less than 2 1/2 hours and enjoyed the view immensely.

Later back down in the valley, we saw a very young punk band playing in an amphitheater and Stuart watched for a while Neysa checked in with some local artists hocking crafts around the amphitheater.

Afterwards we saw this cool mosaicked building and walked in to see if we could check it out. It turned out to be an art school for what looked like young teenagers. Each room had students doing something creative- drawing, sculpting, playing music, and in the back learning some traditional dance as seen above. Some of the kids had lab coats on- we don't know what that's about but we saw kids with lab coats all over town. The kids started cracking up when we came in taking pictures, but as all people were in Argentina, they were totally welcoming and smiled for the camera.

The impressive pink building is the San Francisco church and was originally painted with a mixture that included ox blood that gave it its unique color. The church is massive and displayed some impressively gory depictions of Christ, a surreal baby christ figure blessed by Pope John Paul II and also a huge and detailed manger scene where the baby jesus's head was as big as Mary's. OUch! Both from visiting the church and other museums it was clear that Salta and the northwest is much more religious and then the secular south that includes Buenos Aires.

Salta is a fairly intact colonial city with most of the streets still cobblestoned and impressive 17th century architecture. One of the jewels of the city is the El Lagar Mansion, owned by the Etchart family and built in the 18th century. We stayed in this remarkable home overflowing with art collected by the family for two nights. You'll see in the pics that the mansion is beautifully maintained -- we didn't snap any pics of our room, but it was hardwood and marble and very well appointed except for an inexplicable collection of ceramic theatre masks arranged in a circle around a mask of Marlon Brando chewing on a stoaggie.

Breakfast was served in the main dining hall from 5:30-10:30am so we decided to sleep in our first day and wandered down sleepy eyed at 10am to find the dining room empty except a beautifully laid out table with jams, rolls, fresh fruit, croissants and flowers and a dapper old fellow waiting for us. That's Diego in the pic. As we were the only two people in the hotel from the night before this man had been waiting since 5:30am for us to come down! And still his cheerful demeanor and excited pantomimed communication could not be contained. At one point he told us that he was 86 years old and gave us some advice, eat only a little meat, drink a little wine each day and bicycle as much as possible.

Across from the El Lagar was an impressive Indigenous Ethnographic museum that celebrated and explored the tremendous crafts and art output of South America's indigenous peoples. Another Diego (I think half of Argentinian males are Diegos's), a round, earnest, chain-smoking, intellectual who would say "Okay, boys, boys..." whenever he wanted to direct our attention to something gave us a two and a half hour tour. Fascinating stuff and a very well organized and presented exhibition. Their collection of images, sculptures and icons that revealed the blending of indigenous images and Catholic ones was particularly interesting. Neysa got Diego flustered when she began to drop some art historian knowledge. Her interpretations didn't quite jive with his but when he found she was connected with the Art Institute he suddenly became quite solicitous of her opinions. "Okay, boys, boys... now what do you see here?" "Yes, a snake, a snake." "Always the snake, the feather and the tiger."

The next couple of pics are of the El Lagar from the back of the property and from the terrace giving a sense of the beautiful grounds.

Final pic of my lovely bride was snapped in the 9 of Julio Plaza at the heart of town. We lazed a couple of ours away over a couple of beers and humitas in the early evening. The weather was ideal. Cool, dry air and the intense Salta sun to keep you warm.